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Carl Strock THE VIEW FROM HERE
GE squeezes workers to build plant
Carl Strock can be reached at 395-3085 or by e-mail at carlstrock@dailygazette.com.

    One thing you’ve got to admit — private industry has local communities over a barrel when it comes to building new plants. Their idea is, if you don’t subsidize us we won’t build in your lousy town. We’ll go somewhere else that will subsidize us. (Witness the computer-chip factory in Saratoga County, underwritten to the tune of $1.3 billion in taxpayer money.)
    Now it appears that private industry, or at least the General Electric Co. portion of private industry, has its work force over a barrel too. The idea in that case is, if you don’t agree to pay cuts or pay freezes or unpaid furloughs, we’ll go somewhere cheaper, which I take to be the plain-English translation of “consider all our options.” We’ll build in Kentucky, or maybe in India.
    That’s what’s going on in Schenectady. GE is holding out the promise of a new $100 million factory to manufacture batteries at the existing main plant down at the end of Erie Boulevard, employing some 350 people, the only possible reaction to which is “Hallelujah!” after the decline Schenectady has suffered in recent decades.
    But then comes the catch. The company wants to be able to pay its workers less, which of course diminishes the value of the plant to the community as a whole, and it wants some kind of break on its property taxes, though we don’t yet know how much that will be, and of course that too diminishes its value to the community.
    At what point is it worth it?
    As far as workers are concerned, GE wants to pay new hires $10 an hour less, across the board.
    At the high end of the pay scale, it wants to give workers aged 60 and over an incentive to retire and get off the payroll.
    And for everybody it wants to freeze pay for the next two years, despite a contract guarantee of a cost-of-living increase each year, which this year was 3 percent, as well as impose periods of unpaid leave as it sees fit, not to mention shut down the entire plant for 10 weeks next year.
    Do you take the deal or don’t you? .........>>>>............>>>>..........http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....amp;EntityId=Ar01100

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"Stop kidding yourself," said Kinnan. "The country? If there aren't any principles any more-and I guess the doc is right, because there sure aren't if there aren't any rules to this game and it's only a question of who robs whom-then I've got more votes than the bunch of you, there are more workers than employers, and don't you forget it, boys!"
"That's a funny attitude to take," said Taggart haughtily, "about a measure which, after all, is not designed for the selfish benefit of workers or employers, but for the general welfare of the public."
"Okay," said Kinnan amiabley,"let's talk your lingo. Who is the public? If you go by quality-then it ain't you, Jim, and it ain't Orrie Boyle. If you go by quantitiy-then it sure is me, because quantity is what I've got behind me," His smile disappeared, and with a sudden, bitter look of weariness he added, "Only I'm not going to say that I'm working for the welfare of my public, because I know I'm not. I know that I am delivering the poor bastards into slavery, and that's all there is to it. And they know it, too. But they know that I'll have to throw them a crumb once in a while, if I want to keep my racket, while with the rest of you they wouldn't have a chance in hell. So that's why, if they've got to be under a whip, they'd rather I  held it, not you-you drooling, tear-jerking, mealy-mouthed bastards of the public welfare! Do you think that outside of your college-bred pansies there's one village idiot whom you're fooling? I'm a racketeer-but I know it and my boys know it, and they know that I'll pay off. Not out of the kindness  of my heart, either, and not a cent more than I can get away with,but at least they can count on that much. Sure, it makes me sick sometimes, it makes me sick right now, but it's not me who's built this kind of world-you did-so I'm playing the game as you've  set it up and I'm going to play it for as long as it lasts-which isn't going to long for any of us!"
He stood up.No one answered him. He let his eyes move slowly from face to face and stop on Wesley Mouch.
"Do I get the Board, Wesley?" he asked casually.
"The selection of the specific personnel is only a technical detail," said Mouch pleasantly. "Suppose we discuss it later, you and I?"

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SCHENECTADY
Workers hear GE proposal
Reaction mixed to contract change
BY JESSICA HARDING Gazette Reporter

    General Electric union employees offered mixed reactions after an informational meeting Sunday about a proposed local amendment to the union's four-year national contract.
    About 500 workers in IUE-CWA Local 301 – the union representing workers at GE Energy and Global Research Center – attended the meeting at the GE Theater at Proc-.........>>>>.............>>>>..........http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....1&Continuation=1

Quoted from benny salami

This is a lose/lose for Schenectady and the workers. They should vote it down. By a landslide.

  It's all a smokescreen to make failures Son of Sam and Death Ray look like they are doing something. They were caught with their pants down when Contec (which had 500 workers) left town. The reporters had to tell Death Ray about this-and you wanted a County economic czar?

  Now they expect the union to take 11 weeks off and mandatory early retirement? Some great deal? Carl has it right and expect the union to vote it down. Anyone really concerned about jobs sees this farce for what it is.

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Union voters accept GE labor deal
Agreement paves way toward new battery plant in Schenectady

By SCOTT WALDMAN and ERIC ANDERSON
Last updated: 10:28 p.m., Tuesday, August 4, 2009

SCHENECTADY -- Union members, by a two-to-one margin, approved a proposed labor agreement with General Electric tonight.
     
The 785-363 vote is a major step in bringing a new $100 million GE battery plant to Schenectady County that would create 350 jobs. While the union members voted for some concessions, the contract change also prevents permanent job cuts for years amidst the nations economic turmoil.

GE wants to offer a voluntary retirement incentive program next year and a new competitive wage schedule that would reduce hourly wage rates by $10 for new hires at Schenectady and at the Global Research Center in Niskayuna.

It also was seeking extended shutdowns next summer and during Thanksgiving week in 2010 at the Schenectady plant, and a cost of living wage increase freeze for the rest of the current contract, which expires in June 2011.

Union Local 301 Business Agent Carmen DePoalo has said the union has been talking with GE about bringing more work to Schenectady "for years." GE's requests were no surprise, he said.

"They want something, we want something," he said during an interview last week.

DePoalo said the economy has been tough on local GE operations.

"The workload has been cut by 50 to 60 percent," he said. "It's actually horrific right now."

That's why the job security measures, which also include a moratorium on plant closings in Schenectady and Niskayuna through June 2011, were an important part of the agreement..............>>>>...............>>>>.............http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=827960

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"Stop kidding yourself," said Kinnan. "The country? If there aren't any principles any more-and I guess the doc is right, because there sure aren't if there aren't any rules to this game and it's only a question of who robs whom-then I've got more votes than the bunch of you, there are more workers than employers, and don't you forget it, boys!"
"That's a funny attitude to take," said Taggart haughtily, "about a measure which, after all, is not designed for the selfish benefit of workers or employers, but for the general welfare of the public."
"Okay," said Kinnan amiabley,"let's talk your lingo. Who is the public? If you go by quality-then it ain't you, Jim, and it ain't Orrie Boyle. If you go by quantitiy-then it sure is me, because quantity is what I've got behind me," His smile disappeared, and with a sudden, bitter look of weariness he added, "Only I'm not going to say that I'm working for the welfare of my public, because I know I'm not. I know that I am delivering the poor bastards into slavery, and that's all there is to it. And they know it, too. But they know that I'll have to throw them a crumb once in a while, if I want to keep my racket, while with the rest of you they wouldn't have a chance in hell. So that's why, if they've got to be under a whip, they'd rather I  held it, not you-you drooling, tear-jerking, mealy-mouthed bastards of the public welfare! Do you think that outside of your college-bred pansies there's one village idiot whom you're fooling? I'm a racketeer-but I know it and my boys know it, and they know that I'll pay off. Not out of the kindness  of my heart, either, and not a cent more than I can get away with,but at least they can count on that much. Sure, it makes me sick sometimes, it makes me sick right now, but it's not me who's built this kind of world-you did-so I'm playing the game as you've  set it up and I'm going to play it for as long as it lasts-which isn't going to long for any of us!"
He stood up.No one answered him. He let his eyes move slowly from face to face and stop on Wesley Mouch.
"Do I get the Board, Wesley?" he asked casually.
"The selection of the specific personnel is only a technical detail," said Mouch pleasantly. "Suppose we discuss it later, you and I?"

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While the union members voted for some concessions, the contract change also prevents permanent job cuts for years amidst the nations economic turmoil.

GE wants to offer a voluntary retirement incentive program next year and a new competitive wage schedule that would reduce hourly wage rates by $10 for new hires at Schenectady and at the Global Research Center in Niskayuna.

It also was seeking extended shutdowns next summer and during Thanksgiving week in 2010 at the Schenectady plant, and a cost of living wage increase freeze for the rest of the current contract, which expires in June 2011.

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I know that I am delivering the poor bastards into slavery, and that's all there is to it. And they know it, too. But they know that I'll have to throw them a crumb once in a while, if I want to keep my racket, while with the rest of you they wouldn't have a chance in hell. So that's why, if they've got to be under a whip, they'd rather I  held it, not you-you drooling, tear-jerking, mealy-mouthed bastards of the public welfare! quoted from Ayn Rand ATLAS SHRUGGED

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GE battery plant deal done
$5M Metroplex aid helps lure 350 jobs
BY MICHAEL LAMENDOLA Gazette Reporter

    General Electric will receive $5 million in assistance from the Metroplex Development Authority, plus tax breaks, toward construction of its $100 million sodium-storage battery plant on the GE Energy Campus off Erie Boulevard.
    GE officially announced it would build the battery plant in Schenectady County, bringing 350 jobs to the facility, during a news conference Wednesday afternoon. At the same event, Metroplex announced the list of economic incentives it offered GE to lure the economic prize to the county.
    “Our economic development team worked hard, competed and won,” said Susan Savage, D-Niskayuna, chairwoman of the Schenectady County Legislature.
    GE’s announcement comes a day after 1,150 unionized members of IUECWA Local 301 voted 2-to-1 to accept an amendment to the national contract. GE said the agreement was essential to its decision to site the plant in Schenectady, as it will provide significant cost savings to the company.
    GE plans to convert Building 66 into the facility, moving turbine operations there to Building 273. The battery plant will open by 2011 and is projected to produce approximately 10 million cells annually when at full capacity.
    U.S. Rep. Paul Tonko, D-Amsterdam, who attended the news conference, called GE’s battery technology.......................>>>>>.............>>>>...............http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....1&Continuation=1